Chirp: NEC's Music Technology Showcase | Night 6 - Music Beyond the Threshold: A Concert of Computer-Assisted Music

Johannes Ockeghem | Quant de vous seul je pes la veue

Kyle Quarles | Fragments 15.0-15.6 (Ockeghem Anamorph)

for 6 amplified singers and video         

Program note

This piece is based on the chanson Quant de vous by Johannes Ockeghem. It uses temporal dynamic networks in Max MSP to create a guided improvisation environment for the singers. The melodic, structural, and phenomic syntax of the Ockeghem is encoded as a series of directed graphs for each voice. The singers then make choices within these graphs, using touchscreens.                              
– Kyle Quarles

Stratis Minakakis | For Felipe M.

for solo amplified saxophone and video       

Ben Eidson, video

Program note

For Felipe M. is a love song to ephemeral things. It is composed of material that engages the margins of auditory perception: islands of fragile sound between pockets of silence, quasi-subliminal signals that disappear in the distance, streams of seemingly interminable melodies, and static sounds of delicate polarities. These four sound types are arranged in an idiomatic “Lieder Ohne Worte” form composed of seven epigrammatic Verses and two extended Stanzas. If there is one common thread that permeates the nature of this material, it is the predilection for minuscule gradations, particularly evident in the nano-microtonal melodies and delicate nuances of breath tones, both of which the result of painstaking collaboration with saxophonist Don-Paul Kahl. By drawing attention to such esoteric nuances, the work aims to create an intimate space between performer and listener, inviting the latter to an inward journey of what the poet C.P. Cavafy calls “indistinct sensations.”
       Felipe M. was a rescue cat that left too soon due to congenital heart disease. He was one of the most empathic, kind, and generous beings who, in the four short months of his life with us, blessed Dolores, Catalina, and Stratis with unconditional love and happiness.   
– Stratis Minakakis

Grant Beale | Autóphagos I

for solo electric guitar and fixed media

Program note

Autóphagos I is the first piece in a series of compositions in which pitch domains, and kinesthetic environments navigated on an instrument are transformed by a self-consumptive process.  Once change is initiated, the available material is permanently altered into a new syntax.  Due to the pluralistic nature of pitches available on guitar, illusory fragments of original gestures still remain, gaining new timbral properties from the interaction with alternate physical realms of the instrument.  In tandem with live guitar, the fixed media explores branching gestural paths, which traverse sets, and subsets of spatial boundaries.                                                                   
– Grant Beale

INTERMISSION

Ben Eidson | VISS O

for solo amplified saxophone and video     

Program note

In VISS 0, three improvisational frameworks merge, each linked to a distinct video effect and offering different levels of responsiveness to the performer. Each system introduces a varying degree of interpretational ambiguity. At times, the screen may display either vague or overwhelming amounts of information, forcing the performer to make assumptions or concessions in interpreting the material. Additionally, the score includes notations for saxophone techniques that are physically impossible to execute.
        Collectively, these frameworks create a highly dense space that challenges the performer to constantly adjust and find their footing, either within or against the complex environment.                                                                ­                 
– Ben Eidson

Xiaofeng Jiang | notes, echoes, too, from that veiled realm

for large ensemble and electronics

woodwinds

Honor Hickman, alto flute
Corinne Foley, oboe
Evan Chu, bass clarinet
Dillon Acey, baritone saxophone
Evan Judson, bassoon

brass
Isaac Dubow, French horn
Mark Tipton, trumpet
Quinn S. McGillis, trombone

percussion and electronics
Noah Mark, percussion
Yali Levy Schwartz, piano
Tianyi Wang, electronics
             
strings
Yirou Ronnie Zhang, violin 1
Tara Hagle, violin 2
Philip Rawlinson, viola
Lily Stern, cello
Mark Abramovski, double bass

Program note

I delve into the realm of subconscious and forgotten memories, hidden within the enigmatic spaces of my mind, to reveal the unknown spaces and the dormant sounds they hold.
       The ensemble is depicted as vessels harboring reservoirs of layered memories, each one housing intricate layers of nebulous and distant echoes. These elusive sounds are referred to as the 'echoes of the external world,' capable of lying dormant within the unconscious or the subconscious. Some of these auditory cues have the power to evoke memories, triggering a resonant response within one's body and inner world. This intriguing phenomenon gradually draws individuals out of their present reality, guiding them into those shrouded corners of their psyche.
– Xiaofeng Jiang

Katarina Miljkovic | Crescent

for solo amplified saxophone and live electronics         

Program note

Crescent is a piece of slow motion, an introspective elaboration on a spectrum of saxophone multiphonics. The underlying time-grid, based on a breathing pattern intrinsic to the performer, unfolds through six distinct movements. In each movement, the sound bends through a gradient of intensity levels, recalling the fluctuation of light. The overarching process leads a listener from the fragility of breathing and barely perceptible sounds to the full strength of saxophone multiphonics. The piece embodies the metamorphosis from the fragile to the vivid, rooted in the fundamental act of breathing.                                     
– Katarina Miljkovic